12:1 These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, 1 has given you to possess. 2 12:2 You must by all means destroy 3 all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. 4 12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, 5 burn up their sacred Asherah poles, 6 and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.
12:29 When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land. 7 12:30 After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.” 12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! 8 For everything that is abhorrent 9 to him, 10 everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!
12:32 (13:1) 11 You 12 must be careful to do everything I am commanding you. Do not add to it or subtract from it! 13
12:1 These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, 14 has given you to possess. 15
18:1 The Levitical priests 16 – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. 17 18:2 They 18 will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; 19 the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. 18:3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment 20 from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep – they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. 18:4 You must give them the best of your 21 grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks. 18:5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand 22 and serve in his name 23 permanently. 18:6 Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will 24 from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, 25 to the place the Lord chooses 18:7 and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. 18:8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. 26
18:9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 18:10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, 27 anyone who practices divination, 28 an omen reader, 29 a soothsayer, 30 a sorcerer, 31 18:11 one who casts spells, 32 one who conjures up spirits, 33 a practitioner of the occult, 34 or a necromancer. 35 18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things 36 the Lord your God is about to drive them out 37 from before you. 18:13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. 18:14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.
18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; 38 you must listen to him. 18:16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our 39 God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.” 18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 18:19 I will personally hold responsible 40 anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet 41 speaks in my name.
18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized 42 him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, 43 ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ 44 – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my 45 name and the prediction 46 is not fulfilled, 47 then I have 48 not spoken it; 49 the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”